In CityBeat‘s Food Issue, I wrote about my experience staging (essentially, interning) at Chad White’s La Justina restaurant in Tijuana. Last week, I used a number of the culinary lessons I learned at La Justina in preparing an amuse bouche for 80 at the Culinary Historians of San Diego’s monthly public meeting at the new San Diego Public Library. The April 19 event featured Chef Deb Schneider of Sol Cocina in Newport Beach and Scottsdale. Schneider’s also the author of five cookbooks, including Baja: Cooking on the Edge, the second edition of which just came out.

The recipe takes the beautiful bounty of Baja’s ingredients, classic and modern technique and Baja’s rich and surprising culinary and ethnic heritage and combines them in a new way, all in a single bite. It’s a dynamic dish, evolving on the palate as the ginger-chipotle sauce gives way to the octopus, then the avocado and the cilantro jus and finally the pea shoot. (The dish is also great made with shrimp.)